A bit of backstory for anyone reading old stories years from now: there’s a global health crisis going on, and a lot of people are acting like it’s either fake or no big deal. I’m waiting for an x-ray, and I overhear some medical workers talking.

Worker #1: “Did you hear that [disease] causes a loss of ability to orgasm?”

Worker #2: “No! Where did you hear that?”

Worker #1: “My girlfriend and I made it up, but if we spread that around, maybe people would actually care.”

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This took place about eight years ago. My younger brother and I join a group of guys for a game of indoor football — soccer — at our local sports centre every weekend. Everyone else is college age, seventeen or eighteen, while I am the eldest at twenty.

Things go by smoothly. One of the guys is a friend of ours, and there is a clear mix of ability so there is little in the way of unbalanced teams. Nonetheless, one of the guys is super competitive and continually body-checks others into the walls in order to tackle them. As the eldest in the group, I have de facto responsibility to ensure everyone’s health and safety, so I gently ask him at the end of the session to tone down his tackling, since he could seriously injure or be injured in doing so. As I feared, he simply brushes it off and says everything will be fine.

Cut to a few weeks later. My brother is unable to come with so it is just me this time. Everything goes fine until a harsh tackle from me on another guy causes me to roll my ankle, causing me to fall hard on my lower back. As play stops, the idiot I mentioned has the brilliant idea of grabbing me by the arms and ankles and carrying me away from the playing area!

While they carry on their game without a care in the world, I am lying there in agony. Between the now worsened ankle injury, they also jarred my lower back by unceremoniously dumping me on the floor. My friend stops playing and comes over to see if I’m okay. I immediately order him to get a member of staff, which he does. When the on-duty first aider — also the manager — arrives, the guys laugh and tell me to “stop acting like a p****,” to which my friend replies that this is serious.

An ambulance is called and my mother arrives after my friend used my phone to call her. About six hours later, I leave the local hospital on crutches with a severe high ankle sprain and strained lower lumbar muscles, and a metric crapload of various prescription painkillers. The following morning, my ankle has swelled to twice the size and looks the colour of a ripe blackberry. I take a photo for my university as proof — I commute to the uni and will be in no shape to get there for at least a week, maybe even two — and settle in to working out how to use my crutches effectively.

Six months later, I start training again to get my fitness back, and my brother and I go back to the football group. Naturally, they laugh that I took half a year off for “diving”…

…until I wordlessly walk up to the idiot in charge and show him the photo of my blackberry-coloured, inflated ankle. I stress my warning back to him from way before, and I swear I have never seen the colour fade so fast from someone seeing consequences of their actions. 

Nowadays, my ankle is fully functional, if slightly more tender, while my lower back has developed into full-on sciatica. Still enjoy football, though!

I’m a nurse on a busy med surge floor. Shift change has just occurred. My CNA calls me to let me know one of my patients’ blood pressure readings is high. I pull up the chart, check the newest results, and realize their drug test is positive for absolutely everything drug we test for and they also have a very high alcohol score. I go into the room to access my patient and as soon as I get in, I know they are starting to go through withdrawals.

I call the doctor immediately to get a drug and alcohol withdrawal medication bundle on. I end up getting a brand-new resident. I introduce myself and explain the issue.

Me: “…and I need a stat order on the drug and alcohol withdrawal med bundle. Thanks!”

Resident: “I’m new; I don’t know what that is.”

Me: “No problem.”

I list the meds I need, the dosages, frequency, etc.

Resident: “I can’t write those orders; those are controlled medications.”

Some of them are, but most are anti-nausea and anti-diarrhea meds.

Me: “You’re a doctor; you can write controlled meds. This is a standard medication bundle for this issue.”

Resident: “I don’t think I can write those.”

Me: “Is [Doctor] there? Can you put him on speaker, please?”

He does and I repeat the request.

Doctor: *To the resident* “Start typing what the nurse tells you.”

Resident: “But I can’t write those orders; they are controlled.”

Doctor: “I’m only going to tell you this once more. Put in all the orders the nice nurse tells you right now. We have a patient who is about to go into severe drug withdrawals. She is trying to avoid the massive projectile vomiting, diarrhea, and seizures that are about to happen. Nurse [My Name], how long do you think we have?”

Me: “Thirty minutes, maybe less. They are already starting to sweat and look a bit green around the gills.”

The new resident was still arguing with the doctor that he couldn’t write those orders. The doc got fed up with him and told him that from then on he was to write every effing order I told him. I got my orders.

A few days later, the new resident was on the floor. I went up to get a med order and he started again with the “I don’t think I’m allowed to write that.” I smiled and let him know that I was nurse [My Name], and that he might remember that the doctor in charge of him told him not to argue with me about med orders. I did have to show him how to put them on, but it got done.

The other nurses asked how I managed to get orders out of him because he’d been pulling the same garbage with all of them. The doctor ended up giving him blanket orders that he was to listen to the nurses, and if he really wasn’t sure to call him or the pharmacist, but he was not allowed to utter “I don’t think I can write that” ever again.

We are wondering if he’ll last through the end of the month.

I’m usually pretty chatty with my doctors; I’ve learned that they have seen and heard much more shocking stories than mine since I live a pretty boring and standard life. Every time I get a new doctor, I’m sure to be honest and unashamed because they kind of need to know things like that.

I start rambling this point to a new doctor and point out how she’s probably dealt with more embarrassing things than someone being a virgin when asked about their sexual history.

She gives me a knowing look and then says, “I was an ER doctor in Chicago.”

Now I definitely know that there’s no scaring her!

I work in a pharmacy and I get a call from an older customer.

Me: “[Pharmacy], how can I help you?”

Customer: “You gave me the wrong pills!”

Me: “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am; did the bag have your name on it?”

Customer: “It’s my name, but the wrong pills are in the bottle!”

Me: “It’s possible we refilled one of your other prescriptions on fi—”

Customer: “No! The wrong pills are in the bottle!”

Me: “All right, can I have the number on the bottle?”

Customer: “Oh, no, you don’t! I’m not giving that to you.”

Me: “All right, can I have your name, please?”

Customer: “No! I’m on to your tricks!”

Me: “Ma’am, I need to look up your file so I can figure out what the problem is.”

Customer: “No, you don’t! I know your sly ways. You’re just going to change my file so you can cover up your mistake!”

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t have that ability. I’d like to help give you the proper medication. Can you please tell me your name?”

Customer: “No! You’re going to change the names of the medications on my chart to hide your screwup!”

Me: “Well, ma’am, can you come back to the store so I can verify the wrong pills were given?”

Customer: “No! I’m holding onto this bottle! It’s evidence!”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t change any ‘evidence,’ since you have a printed label on the bottle. Can you tell me the name of the medication?”

Customer: “No! Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not telling you anything!”

Me: *Sigh* “Okay, ma’am, if you won’t let me see your file or the pills, and you won’t bring it back, then what would you like me to do?”

Customer: “I want you to know that you’re a horrible pharmacy. And you are a terrible person!”

Me: “Excuse me? I’m trying to help—”

Customer: “No, you are an awful person! You don’t deserve to be in business, trying to poison me with the wrong pills!”

Me: “Well, can you describe them to me? Are they white? Oval?”

Customer: “I’m not telling! You are a bad person!”

Me: “Ma’am, I would really like to help you, if you could give me some informati—”

Customer: “No, you don’t! Shame on you for trying to kill me and then hiding the evidence!”

She hung up.